rkagerer

Hearing this story is helpful.

I posit the reason it sucks is because the Chrome team doesn't care (at least not enough) about the print feature. Firefox is a little better. But I haven't seen decent printing since the days of Internet Explorer.

Some of the most annoying culprits are website terms of service where printing to PDF produces page breaks in places that cut off lines of text.

You mean if you live on the 4km loop 'serviced' by BASE-STEP?

That said, after playing it for a while something just felt "off". I like the idea of being involved in individual proposals, but there are too many immersion-breaking dialogs that come up (some of which just seem too irrelevant). And the text in them is sometimes "off" in a fashion that feels like it was written by AI (though I'm not sure if it was). The news articles and such in SimCity felt more hand-curated, concise and clever - thus more entertaining.

Also it would be nice if popular menu options (like Street, etc) showed keyboard shortcuts.

And, is anyone else having trouble demolishing recently built streets?

My bank advertises with Meta and included my account in some kind of upload list (probably Meta Ads Manager). I noticed their logo while poking around in Facebook's settings, under Audience-based Advertising. I was livid.

As far as I'm concerned they had no business telling a creepy company like Meta who I bank with. I certainly never consented to that.

I dug up my original banking agreement - a 5-page document on aging, yellowed parchment that I signed over a decade ago. Nothing in there about them being able to unilaterally change terms without notice. I also printed out their latest, 30+ page standard banking agreement which (after making inquiries) they seemed to think applied to my account.

I brought both in to my bank manager and put them on the table. At a high level, I pointed how ridiculous the size had grown to, and he was sympathetic.

In terms of details, I'd highlighted several portions that pertain to privacy, and we walked through the differences together. I underscored how none of them were needed to provide me banking services, how the benefits they conveyed were solely to TD, and how they were harmful to me as a customer.

In the end, he agreed to formally acknowledge on file that I did not agree to the new terms.

You may disagree over how much effect that will have in practice, but the acknowledgment was not just a bureaucratic exercise. It established very firm evidence that I never agreed to the new contract, or any terms the bank might rely on as a basis for the objectionable practices. It would become material if those practices cause me damage in the future, significant enough to litigate. i.e. They knew they lacked agreement, and continued to provide me banking services.

He also worked with internal departments to toggle all available opt-out flags.

I was fortunate in this case the manager comprehended my concerns and seemed to want to keep me as a customer. I recognize not everyone would necessarily get as far.

It really disgusts me that some of the most degenerate practices of silicon valley are spreading to other industries. With lawyers more broadly adopting some of the most viciously one-sided legal language big tech pioneered.

I for one am not on board, and refuse to be bullied into providing some kind of imaginary consent. I say 'imaginary', because I don't think anyone in their right mind who reads and understands such terms would ever agree to them willingly.

I would never in a thousand years accept such a one-sided, despicable business relationship as their proposed terms seek to establish.

It's already bad enough they hoover up your customer lists and cross-link to their own - for purposes of gaining insight on individuals who never consented to it.

Now they're trying to use their monopoly over a form of social networking to bully you into arbitrary contract terms for a largely unrelated product.

You don't need Meta as much as you think. And in aggregate, they need their customers far more than those customers need them.

There are much friendlier ecosystems in which to engage with your users.

I wouldn't say that at all. Correct me if I misremember, but the original iPhone didn't even have an ecosystem of apps outside a few Apple-sanctioned ones. I was thoroughly unimpressed when it came out, at the missed (in retrospect, deferred) opportunity.

My older Palm device felt superior in nearly every way I cared about.